A ceratopsid-dominated tracksite from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Campanian) at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park (Alberta, Canada) are renowned for the exceptional abundance and diversity of Campanian-aged vertebrate body fossils, especially dinosaurs. Due to the steep exposures and rapid erosion, dinosaur tracks and trackways are considered extremely rare but have been recorded from a small number of concretionary casts, which pertain to hadrosaurids and a single tyrannosaurid. Here, we document the first multitaxic dinosaur footprint assemblage from the Dinosaur Park Formation based on a new locality that contains multiple individual ceratopsids, two tyrannosaurids, a possible ankylosaurian, and a small theropod-like taxon. Ceratopsid tracks are globally rare but dominate the new tracksite, suggesting gregarious behaviour, which is also supported by their regular spacing and parallel arrangement. The possible ankylosaurian track is identified (in part) on account of having three distinct pedal digits, consistent with the pedal anatomy of several Dinosaur Park ankylosaurids (Euoplocephalus, Dyoplosaurus) and the newly erected ichnotaxon Ruopodosaurus clava but differentiating it from other ankylosaurian tracks (Tetrapodosaurus isp.). Importantly, the new tracks are the first natural moulds (concave epirelief) found in Dinosaur Provincial Park, which, due to the unique geomorphology of the area, can only be recognised in outcrops where there are prominent sediment displacement rims. The new search image outlined here has already resulted in several subsequent trackway discoveries, and has the potential to transform ichnological studies in the Dinosaur Park Formation and related formations where badlands prevail.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".